Using Aspirin Spray to Protect & Strengthen Tomato Plants

 

Nice video about using Aspirin to boot the defence of tomato plants against blight, I have done this in the past before the Blight Resistant tomatoes were available, and it does work. The foliage gets greener, darker and looks more leather like.

Felling Trees and Filling Raised Beds

I often forget to take a before picture, but I remembered today and this was the state of play this morning of SFG Bed 2 before I stared adding more cut up tree  branches. 

I also dropped off loads of cardboard donated by my sister who has has some DIY done and had a load of cardboard boxes to get rid off.

Self seeded saplings at the patio on plot 1A and by the plot 1A shed, that had taken advantage of my lack of activity due to the cancer treatment last year, were cut down in order to fill up the bottom of Square Foot Garden Bed 2.

Saplings harvested and brought to the bed to be further cut up and added to the existing pile of branches to increasing depth of timber to the bottom of the bed.

View Up the allotment, now the saplings at the tomato bed and up the end of plot 1A have been cut down.

Bed full of the harvested saplings with another wheelbarrow load of plum tree branches ready to be cut up and processed on a future visit.

Afternoon return visit for an hour and half with Emma, who cleared the Climbing Frame Greenhouse of mares tail for me, whilst I decanted weathered and rotted woodchips dropped off by Wally last week on top of the branches I had cut up and added to the Square Foot Gardening bed 2 in the morning.

Northern Lights

 

More Java Potatoes In Buckets

Seeing the pebble pool working in the sunshine, and Michelle's new bees visiting for a drink makes me smile and happy.

Today on the plot mixed up new and old compost for the Java main Crop Potatoes in Buckets and planted another 16 spuds worth, just a few more buckets to go and the spuds will be done. Photo above Java Maincrop at 1/3 depth of the bucket

Java Main crop potatoes at 2/3 depth of the bucket. 

Bucket topped up with compost.

Buckets moved to Bed 1 on the allotment and watered. Next lot of grass will go on top as a mulch.

The First Earlies are showing now. I attacked all the bindweed with weed killer until the weed killer ran out. Watered the Red Baron onions and reading all the Facebook posts about them it may have been a little foolish to have just grown the one variety this year, as they are prone to bolt, time will tell. Watered the two grapevines.

Win A Waltons Greenhouse Worth £499.99

 

Fancy winning a 6x4ft stylish wooden greenhouse worth £500?!

Thompson & Morgan have teamed up with their friends at Waltons Garden Buildings to give away a quality wooden Evesham greenhouse.

If you haven’t already entered, please give it a go now

Potatoes In Buckets

Again thank to my sister for sorting out my socks and medical boots, early this morning so I could get to the allotment again between 10:00 - 13:30 and worked in the sun (sun block applied) to get some main crop potatoes into buckets, trim the path to the entrance and add grass clippings as mulch to the potatoes, SFG Bed 2 and the Hotbin.

Java Main Crop Potatoes added to the buckets at 1/3 depth of the bucket

Then another two spuds added at 90 degrees at 2/3 depth of the bucket, then topped up to about 25- 30mm from the top of the bucket.

Main crop Java spuds in buckets moved to Bed 1 and watered in then a layer of grass clippings added to the top of the buckets as a mulch.

Buckets ready for mixing more old and new compost together next visit to get more Main Crop Java spuds out of the potting shed and into the buckets to grow.

KC5383 Grapevine Plant - Flame Red (Seedless) Grapevine to the right of the comfrey pipe bursting into leaf.

KA1985 Grapevine (Vitis) Lakemore White (Seedless) to the left of the comfrey pipe also bursting into leaf 

The weed killer has finally worked on the bindweed to the runner bean climbing frame

Walking onion Bed needs the timber framing re installed around it on a future visit.

Cut Branches that need processing i.e. cutting up further and adding to the Square Foot Gardening Bed 2 next to the potting shed. 

Nettles in bed next to Hotbin need to be removed, Grass clippings from my sister also added to the Hotbin today.

Grass clippings over from the potatoes in buckets & filling the Hotbin were added to the weathered woodchips and branches from the trimmed tree and watered in. Coffee grounds also added. It's going to take some time to get this bed to a level where the excavated Mel's Mix can be put back in but little and often and suddenly the bed will be ready to use, and I can move on to sorting out the Square Foot Gardening Bed 1 next door. 

SFG Bed 2 goes Hügelkultur

My sister came this morning to help me with my socks and medical boots, and it was off for the morning and little bit of the afternoon on the allotment. I watered what's growing in the potting shed and then attacked the plum tree that has never given me a fruit as its getting way too big. I'm going to use it to fill the bottom of my now extended raised Square Foot Gardening bed next to the potting shed.

Lazy Housewife French Climbing Beans doing well

Cucumbers doing well in the self watering pop bottle propagators

One of my new favorite tools the Bamse Mini Chainsaw came out to play and  I have to say it was £39.99 well spent, makes cutting the tree back really easy. 

View from the path between plot 2 & 3 the Plum tree has been trimmed from the front and back 

I cut up as much as I could in the sun and then took the wheel barrow to SFG Bed 2

View from the potting shed of Square Foot Garden Bed 2 before adding the contents of the wheel barrow. To save buying lots of compost or soil I'm layering the bottom of the bed with the branches from the plum tree that I'm reducing and possibly removing in my take on a Hügelkultur Square Foot Gardening Raised Bed.

Contents of the wheel barrow added

First bag of weathered bark from Wally added to the bed and watered in. Lots more tree to cut up and the promise of grass cutting from my sister in the next couple of days, the bed will slowly get filled. 

Hedgehog Awareness Week

 

Terracotta Pot Slug Traps

If you catch 'good' slugs, like Leopard Slugs, release them away from the traps. Here is how you make and use a chemical free terracotta clay pot slug and snail trap. Two pots keep moisture in the trap and that equals a wonderful trap home for snails and slugs! You get to evict them. You can decide what varieties to keep, relocate, or remove. No chemicals are used so you can chose what to do.

All By Myself .....

 

Today I went back to the allotment all by myself, for a couple of hours and took the timber stacked on SFG Bed 2 off and bottomed out the bed of the Mel's Mix into a couple of square flower buckets.

I lined the bottom of the excavation with a few layers of Magic Cardboard and watered those in place, then I took my mini chainsaw and my Kent & Stowe Sure Cut All Purpose Extra Power Loppers which will handle up to 35mm diameter thick branches to the plum tree and started to fill up the bottom half of the Square Foot Garden Bed 2 with the timber.

Scraped the outside Mels Mix away from the inside of the timber forming the bed

Then bottomed it out using the plastic shovel. The Magic Cardboard that I originally lined the beds with was never found, the worms and bacteria has consumed it, and I know it's not a barrier to weed roots or invading raspberry canes but I'm going to line the bottom again with additional cardboard to try and hold the weeds back a little if possible.

Lined with a layer of Magic Cardboard which was watered in place

Then another layer layer of Magic Cardboard which was also watered in

Then I attacked the plum tree and started to cut up the branches to fill the bottom of the raised bed. It stared to spit a little with rain, so I packed up the tolls and went home for a late lunch.

I picked up this mini Bamsa chainsaw when it was on offer on Amazon for £39.99. 

It's Lightweight and manoeuvrable, with a cutting chain as good as any full-size chainsaw. Quick and easy to set up and use. It is supplied in a case which keeps all of the bits together, the kit includes all of the adjustment tools necessary, a comprehensive instruction manual and even a small tube of chainsaw oil.

It's the first time I've used it and it was awesome. 

I'm looking forward to attacking the rest of the tree with it.

The Kent & Stowe Sure Cut All Purpose Extra Power Loppers which will handle up to 35mm diameter thick branches also made light work of cutting up the branches into more manageable lengths. 

The Kent & Stowe Loppers knocked spots off the long handled loppers I already have, the grip is better and the length of the arms is selectable and longer giving me more leverage, and as can be seen the cutting sections look much more robust and fit for purpose.    

I used secateurs to cut the smaller branches and drop them in the bed.